Tag: navisworks

Performance Tips for Working with Very Large Datasets in Navisworks

Luke Johnson

When working across an entire healthcare facility and clashing combined NWDs, Navisworks may slow down to a crawl (we are talking single instance using 10gb RAM or more). Here are some tips to improve stability:

  • Make a “safe” home viewpoint inside a room somewhere, that won’t force Navis to draw the entire dataset in one window, and set some of the following as part of that viewpoint…
  • use Shaded View, not Full Render
  • Lights – Headlight
  • Don’t try and use Appearance Profiler if your dataset is large and your Appearance-related Search Sets are not at file level
  • When in Clash Detective, you can use the automatic Item 1 and 2 Highlighting instead of Appearances to visually examine clashing items
  • File Options – Clipping Planes – Near – Fixed at 0.1
  • File Options – Clipping Planes – Far- Fixed at 100 (or less if necessary)
  • Use Selection Tree instead of highly processor intensive Search Sets when possible
  • When appending a new model to an already huge dataset, you might get better results if you use the Project Browser. Import Sheets and Models -> bring the new model in and then after opening it and having a look, Append this model to your main model by right clicking in the Project Browser

Finally, I have found Navisworks 2015 to be much smoother and more reliable than previous versions. You can upgrade to 2015 and still downsave to 2013 for projects that require you to do so.

    Navisworks 2015 Service Pack 2

    Luke Johnson

    Now available in Application Manager, direct links:

    Autodesk_Navisworks_2015_Service_Pack_2_Multilingual_Freedom_64bit.msp (msp – 201Mb)
    Autodesk_Navisworks_2015_Service_Pack_2_Multilingual_Manage_64bit.msp (msp – 265Mb)
    Autodesk_Navisworks_2015_Service_Pack_2_Multilingual_Simulate_64bit.msp (msp – 265Mb)


    Service Pack 2 resolves an issue opening and appending multiple files in a single operation. The Service Pack also resolves issues identified in our Point Cloud support, Autodesk Rendering, Quantification, Clash Detective, and interoperability.

    Readme and install links:

    Main Autodesk page:
    Navisworks 2015 Service Pack 2 | Navisworks Products | Autodesk Knowledge Network

    Navisworks 2015 PDF Reader App

    Luke Johnson

    Something popped up on Exchange recently, got tweeted, and then disappeared… but now its back!

    This addin allows simple import of PDFs directly into the Navisworks 2015 Project Browser as sheets that can be reviewed, marked up and quantified. Previously, to accomplish this you could open the PDF in Design Review with vector information, save as DWF and “Import Sheets and Models” to bring the DWF sheet into Navis. As you may know, the 2015 release introduced a lot more Quantification functionality for 2D, and I believe this new PDF importing tool will become a key part of that workflow.

    In short, it seems that the sheet import process for Navisworks 2D documets is about to get a lot easier!

    Link to PDF Reader download page (sign in with your Subscription account login on Exchange and then the Subscription only button will change to “Free” and you can download AutodeskNavisworks2015PDFReader.msi)

    Read the help document here

    The entire Navisworks App Exchange is here

    I hinted at the document aggregation possibilities in Navisworks back in this post.

    Export Geometry from Navisworks into Revit (and back again) using only AutoCAD

    Luke Johnson

    I have previously discussed going from Navisworks to Revit using FBX – 3dsMax – SAT. However, maybe we can do this without 3dsMax. Did you know that vanilla AutoCAD has a FBXIMPORT command?

    1) Export FBX from Navisworks – it will ignore Section clipping planes, but it will respect the Hide/Required setting of the view. You can limit polygons (advised for big models)

    2) FBXIMPORT in AutoCAD – untick Cameras and Block options as they can be problematic.
    Then save DWG. (Note – see below for correct 1:304.8 import scale)
    EDIT: If using Navisworks 2015 FBX export to version 2014, with Advanced Options units set to millimeters, you can import to AutoCAD 2015 with 1:1 scale factor (using latest service packs)

    3) Open Revit and Link in the DWG.
    For this example, I used Origin to Origin as I wanted to try round-tripping back to Navisworks.

    Once I exported the NWC and put it back into Revit, I noticed the file was out of scale. Now, I experimented with a few different scale settings, but everytime it was a scale of about 30 or 300 wrong. 1 foot = exactly 304.8 mm. Evidently, the “internal” units of an FBX are feet. So, when we import to AutoCAD we need to use this setting to translate to mm:

    This time, when I exported the Revit view to a NWC, and then appended it back to Navisworks – it can came back in exactly the right place. This workflow relies on using the internal Revit Zero point and Origin to Origin linking.

    There you go – now you can roundtrip any mesh geometry from Navisworks to AutoCAD to Revit and back to Navisworks 🙂

    Bonus Tools for Revit 2015 + video playlist (Sheet Revisions manager, Clash Report XML import to Revit and more)

    Luke Johnson

    I have posted about KiwiCodes Bonus Tools before, particularly the Excel and data tools. A Sheet Revisions manager has recently been added to the toolset. Check out how quick and easy it is to add revisions to sheets with this:

    Honestly, if you have $35 to spend on Revit addins, this Bonus Tools package is definitely what I would spend it on…

    Versions for 2013, 2014 and 2015 in one install package:
    Bonus Tools | Autodesk Revit | Autodesk Exchange Apps

    Video playlist showing all of the Bonus Tools in action:

     

    Clash Report XML to Revit:

    Bulk Editing or Batch Renaming Saved Viewpoints in Navisworks

    Luke Johnson

    Firstly, export the Viewpoints you want to rename to XML.

    Open the XML in Notepad++.  Now we are going to use Search – Replace to append something to the view name in the XML file.  Once we get the Find syntax correct (I used view name=”View), you can just use a backslash 1 in the Replace box to signify the Find result, and then add whatever you like after that.  See the image:

     (make sure you pick the Regular Expression radio button)

    Click Replace All, then save the XML (make sure you just click save, and don’t click Save As).  Now, import it back into your Saved Viewpoints in Navisworks.

     This is what it looks like in Navisworks after re-importing the XML:

    Keep in mind that the import / export process will result in your Hide/Required and Override Material boxes becoming unticked for each imported view.

    This is another good reason that you should be using Appearance Profiler by now… Have you noticed Presenter has now been completely replaced by Autodesk Rendering in Navisworks 2015?

    More on Notepad++ renaming:
    regex – How do you do a Find and Insert in Notepad instead of a replace, while using regular expression? – Stack Overflow